Tag: spring

Gluten Free Easter Nest Cakes Recipe (Low FODMAP)
baking · celebrations · gluten free · low FODMAP · Seasonal

Gluten Free Easter Nest Cakes Recipe (Low FODMAP)

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Last year for Easter, my husband was following the low FODMAP diet to try to help us identify his food intolerances beyond just gluten intolerance. The year before, I had baked a delicious chocolate Easter Nest cake from a recipe by Nigella Lawson, but although we had really enjoyed it, clearly it wasn’t going to be suitable for a low FODMAP diet. So I set about adapting the recipe to ensure that everyone could enjoy it – and I also adapted it from a massive Easter cake into smaller individual cakes that would be suitable to bake with a young family. Presenting: my gluten free Easter nest cakes recipe! And if you still want to make one big cake, just double up the quantities and stick it all in one big cake tin…

Gluten Free Easter Nest Cakes Recipe

Ingredients For Your Cakes:

You will need the following ingredients for your gluten free chocolate nest cakes:

  • 3 eggs
  • 85g caster sugar
  • 75g salted butter (butter is low FODMAP but not completely lactose free, so if you need a completely lactose free recipe, then replace with coconut oil (75g) or vegetable oil (55g))
  • 125g dark chocolate (make sure it’s vegan dark chocolate if you need 100% lactose free)
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence

And for the topping and decoration, you will need the following ingredients:

  • 125ml vegan double cream (Elmlea do a plant based double cream which works perfectly)
  • 70g dark chocolate
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1 pack chocolate mini eggs or buttons
The finished product

Gluten-Free Easter Nest Cakes: The Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180 C.

2. Lightly grease the bases of a non-stick muffin or cupcake tray. A silicone cupcake tray is best, as you can easily pop out the cooked cakes. A metal cupcake tray will work too, but prepare yourself for a bit of an adventure getting the cakes out of the tray (however – even if you break them, they will stick back together again if still warm!)

3. Put the 75g butter and the 125g chocolate in a bowl and melt them down together either in a microwave (short bursts of 10 seconds at full power, stirring in-between, until melted) or over a saucepan of hot water.

4. Separate two of the eggs.

Separating the eggs

5. Whisk the two egg whites with a handheld or stand mixer, slowly adding in 50g of the sugar until the mixture forms soft, gleaming peaks.

6. In a separate bowl, whisk together the two egg yolks with the remaining whole egg (I mean… Not the shell, obviously), the vanilla essence and the remaining 35g sugar.

7. Gently add the chocolate mixture to the bowl and fold it in carefully.

Folding in the chocolate and butter

8. Next, start adding the whisked egg whites and folding them in gently. First, add about one-third of the egg whites, then once that’s all combined, add another third and so on.

9. Pour the mixture in to the cupcake tin, filling each cupcake hole about 3/4 full. Bake in your preheated oven for about 20 minutes, or until the cakes are risen and cracked but not wobbly when you shake the tray (see the picture, below). Let the cakes cool in the tin on a wire rack, and don’t panic when they sink – that’s what makes the nests!

Fresh from the oven

10. Once the cakes are cool-ish, get them out of the cake tin. Don’t worry if they break – I promise that if you gently squash the separate pieces back together, they will magically re-combine through some incredible cakey voodoo.

11. Melt the 70g dark chocolate and set it aside while you whip the double cream until it’s forming soft peaks. Add the vanilla essence and slowly fold in the melted chocolate, but make sure it’s cooled down a fair bit first.

12. Dollop the cream into the sunken centres of your chocolate nest cakes, and add the chocolate eggs or buttons.

13. Enjoy your gluten-free, low-FODMAP chocolate Easter nest cakes!

Om nom Easter yum yums

Top Tips For Your Easter Nest Cakes:

These cakes are sort of like a brownie/meringue hybrid, which means a lot of folding various mixtures into one another. Usually, where whisked egg is involved, the idea is to combine the two mixes completely without knocking too much air out of the egg whites. Not confident on how to do this? Here’s a handy guide on folding in egg whites.

It’s also worth noting that the sugary shell on the outside of the chocolate eggs will melt over time, so if (for example) you’re preparing these the night before for a party the next day, don’t add the eggs until a few hours before you’re ready to serve, if you can.

More recipes for gluten-free chocolatey treats!

If you’ve enjoyed this recipe, why not try my favourite gluten-free Rocky Road recipe (no baking required!) or this delicious recipe for coffee-lovers – gluten-free chocolate cappuccino brownies. Yum!

First Spring Into Nature: A Toddler’s First Steps In Springtime
Just for fun · Seasonal

First Spring Into Nature: A Toddler’s First Steps In Springtime

The Sickly Mama1 Comment
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Little Man is now 16 months old. Since last autumn he’s changed from being a baby into a toddler, and sometimes it feels like it’s difficult to keep up! Over the winter, he learned to walk, and one of the best things about the weather warming up for spring has been the opportunity for him to really explore the natural world on his own terms as a toddler, and take his first spring into nature.

Of course, last year we spent plenty of time outdoors – thanks to lockdown, there often wasn’t much to do other than to sit out in the garden together in the afternoons. But the ability to walk rather than crawl (or just lie there!) has completely changed how he interacts with nature, and also (let’s be honest) slightly reduced the frequency with which he tries to eat pebbles, dirt, and leaves. I wanted to write a post about Little Man’s first spring into nature, what he’s enjoyed most in the great outdoors, and some of the fun ways he’s engaged with springtime.

First Spring into Nature: A Toddler’s First Steps in Springtime

Meeting the birds

Little Man loves birds. When walking him to and from nursery in the pram, he would sometimes point up at the sky, or behind us. After a while, my husband realised he was pointing at birds, which of course were usually gone by the time mum or dad turned to look.

He’s fascinated by birds, and now we make a point of stopping to look whenever there’s a fat pigeon on a fence that’s too lazy to fly away when we get close. There’s even a little blackbird who has been flying back and forth from a particular berry-covered tree on our way to nursery all winter, who sometimes will perch on a branch and watch us watching him for a little while before he flaps off.

Going to see the ducks on the river has also been a big hit this winter, although I’m not sure that Little Man has worked out the connection between swimming ducks and flying birdies…

Down by the riverside

First steps on grass

The first time after Little Man had learned to walk that it was mild enough to take him out to the garden and let him try walking on the grass was so lovely. He didn’t know what to make of the grass but once he discovered how soft it was to fall over on, he threw himself (often quite literally…) into the challenge of learning to walk on it.

I love the fact that when you have a young child, you almost rediscover the world from their perspective. As a grown up, I wouldn’t say that walking on a freshly-mown lawn is any more difficult than walking on a flat pavement – unlike, say, walking on sand, which is noticeably more difficult. But for Little Man, it’s a completely different experience. Plus, there are loads of little rocks everywhere to eat look at…

One of our first trips to the garden this spring

First snow

We didn’t get heavy snow here at any point this winter (unlike most of the rest of the country, it seems!). But we did get a decent dusting one day – enough for wee man to get out and discover snow for the first time. We bundled him up and set him loose on the driveway.

He was fascinated and really enjoyed it for a little bit, until he fell down onto his bum and I wasn’t quite quick enough to pick him up. A chilly rear end was apparently enough to put him off snow completely, and so we retreated back into the house. I think the fun of snow is perhaps more pronounced for slightly older children.

First snow for Little Man

Meeting the flowers

I love spring bulbs and flowers. My garden is filled with daffodils, tulips, hyacinths – you name it. I love the way that bright daffodils really make it feel like spring has finally arrived, even if the weather is still cold. And for Little Man, the daffodils are almost as big as he is, which is strange to imagine from an adult’s perspective.

He’s been loving discovering flowers, from the bulbs in our garden to the cut flowers we’ve had in the house over the past few weeks. But when he fell over in the local park and squashed a lovely bed of narcissus perfectly flat, we did run away pretty sharpish…

Meeting a daffodil

Your first spring into nature:

What fun discoveries have your little ones made this springtime? Let me know in the comments!